Friday, October 09, 2015

Nevius flacks for the Warriors' arena

In his columnthis morning, C.W. Nevius is in a triumphant, gloating mode, since one of City Hall's favorite projects---the Warriors' arena on the waterfront---is looking increasingly likely to be built.

And if there's one thing Nevius likes above all is that whatever City Hall proposes should be done, regardless of opposition by nimbys, leftists, and obstructionists---all of which are usually imaginary when Nevius is flacking for City Hall projects.

In this instance, it's the Mission Bay Alliance. They are real and apparently they have money, so Nevius sees them as "rich, obstinate obstructionists."

He prefers the rich, "imposing" guys who own the Warriors, who will get even richer after they build that new arena. They should comp Nevius with some free tickets after this morning's ass-kissing:

Joe Lacob and Peter Guber are a long way from the shoestring operation of former [Warriors]owner Chris Cohan. But they’ve got the money. Guber’s Mandalay Entertainment Group is a major player in television, movies (e.g. “Rain Man,” “Batman,” “The Color Purple” and “Flashdance”) and sports. Lacob is a wealthy venture capitalist with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. They’re imposing.

In an almost comical attempt to muddy the issue, the group said in a news release that: “Although it had no obligation to do so, the Alliance took the practical step of searching for a better site for the arena when no one else did.” To the surprise of no one, it was so far down the waterfront it might as well have been in Brisbane.Actually, it's also on the waterfront, only eleven blocks south of the present site, but Nevius isn't interested in objectivity here. He's making a case against the Mission Bay Alliance:If the environmental impact report is approved, the alliance’s options will be limited. It could try putting the project on the ballot, but there are problems. For starters, the project is within height limitations already, so there’s no issue there. The group probably has the money to collect the roughly 9,000 signatures needed to qualify for the ballot, but it wouldn’t be cheap. Besides, what would the issue be? That people in San Francisco don’t want a retail, housing and entertainment project on open land along the waterfront? If Prop. D wins in November, it will have the answer — they do.Proposition D is for the Giants' development project that has little city opposition, which Nevius assumes will pass easily in November. The Alliance could frame the Warriors' arena issue thusly: Why let the Warriors build across the street from a growing UC medical-industrial complex when you have a good site further south where traffic will be less of a problem?Like City Hall---and his colleague, John King---Nevius was disappointed when city voters passed waterfront height limits with Proposition B last year ("If it passes, we're done"). He led the media/City Hall lynch mob against Ross Mirkarimi. Like City Hall he was dumb on the anti-jihad ads on Muni buses. Not surprisingly he supported Ed Lee early on, though he fretted about the mayor and his appointments once he was in office. He supported the Americas Cupand was furious at those who opposed that fiasco that ended up costing the city money. Of course he likes Supervisor Wiener.Nevius is a bargain for whoever occupies City Hall, since he acts like a full-time flack for whatever the people who run the city want---and the Chronicle pays his salary!